


For a Charm of Powerful Trouble

by merellia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Claudia Stilinski, Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Stiles, Gen, Kid!Stiles, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stilinski Family Feels, The Alpha Pack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1459159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merellia/pseuds/merellia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles' mother and the Hale family are alive. Things still happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

His mother’s hands folded about his, warm and firm, as she guides him to lift the pestle. “Just like this, Przemyk.” The pestle is fat and heavy, but as they twist and push it, the spoonful of dried bugs in the mortar turn slowly to crumbs.

“Mamusia, look, look! It’s purple!”

His mother laughs and gives him a quick kiss, her dark curls tickling his ear. “A beautiful purple,” she agrees. “We have to keep working it, just like this, to make it a powder.”

“What will we do then?” Przemysl leans over the mortar to look more closely at the bug-crumbs, then settles back in his mother’s lap as they push the pestle. 

“Oh, we’ll mix it with some water, and then we’ll soak a stone in it, and a few other things, until it’s done.” They settle into a rhythm with the pestle, her hands still around his, push and twist, lift, push and twist.

“What will we do then?”

“Well. . .” His mother sounds thoughtful. “We could do several things with it, depending. If we write on it one way, we could use it to talk to creatures with many legs, like these beetles.”

Przemysl giggles. “Talk to bugs!”

He can feel it when his mother nods, and, beneath their hands, the crumbs become powdery. “If we write on it another way, we could use it to talk to creatures without legs.”

“Oh!” Przemysl gets excited. “Mamusia! I could talk to Putty Charles! I could find out which mice he likes best to eat—I could, I could ask him when he’ll shed next!”

“That’s such a good idea,” his mother says, and he feels warmed by her approval. “Putty Charles’ skin could be very useful. There’s lots we could make with it. But how about we finish this, and then go take your Dad his lunch?”

Przemysl nods. “Yes! I want to sit in the front seat of Daddy’s car!”

“Oh, Przemyk. You would make your Mama sit in the back?” 

Przemysl laughs so hard he drops the pestle. “Mamusia, you are too big to fit in my seat!”

\--

Stiles finishes grinding the kermes bugs and carefully wraps his fingers around the mortar to tip the powder onto a small dish. “It’ll take me about a week to finish the talisman, Derek.”

Derek paces restlessly about the workroom, and Stiles tries not to appreciate how snugly the black shirt he wears stretches across his shoulders. “That’s not soon enough. The Alphas won’t wait. We need news on their movements now.”

Stiles shrugs, but carefully continues about his work, shifting to hold the mortar in the cup of one hand while he picks up a small straw whisk to brush out a bit more of the powder. “It takes as long as it takes, Derek.”

“You can’t”—Derek makes a random flapping gesture with his hand—“speed it up?”

Stiles tries not to roll his eyes too hard as he puts the mortar down. “No, Derek. This talisman will need moon’s first-quarter light. So unless you can speed up the moon,” Stiles smugly repeats Derek’s stupid magic-flapping gesture in his face, “or unless Laura wants to deal with my mother—you’ll have to wait.”

Derek grumbles. “I’ll wait.”

Stiles snorts. “Laura just doesn’t want to pay what my mother will ask.” He puts the pestle back in the cleared-out mortar and returns them to their corner of the work table. 

Derek flashes him a grin, always unexpected for how it brightens his face. “You _are_ cheap,” he agrees.

“And you’re an asshole,” Stiles returns smartly. He gets a jar of charcoal from the shelves, then nods to the unlocked window. “Go on about your wolfy business now. I’ve got some more work to do here.”

Derek heads over to the window, but pauses with one hand on the sill. “I’m a distraction?” he asks, his tone neutral.

Stiles keeps his breathing and heartbeat steady as he scoops a small spoonful of charcoal dust into the dish with the kermes powder, and his eyes on his work. “Everything’s a distraction. And my mother will be home soon. I need to get this set up first.”

Derek jumps out the window.

“Show-off,” Stiles mutters. He stops long enough to shut the window before a breeze can disrupt his work. Derek’s already out of sight.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles flings open the front door, not even pausing as he slaps a finger to the star on the icon in automatic habit, and rushes up the stairs, flinging his backpack away and kicking off his shoes as he goes. “Mama, Mama!” His sneakers thump noisily as they tumble back down. 

“In here, _słoneczko_ ,” his mother calls from the work room. He barely waits for her reply before he opens the door and grins. She smiles back, her eyes brightening as she turns to watch him enter. 

An easel with a half-finished canvas occupies one corner of the work room by the window—his mother’s art, and her reputation for working with natural pigments, is her explanation for why she gathers and buys so many plants and odd minerals—but she’s standing at the work table in the center of the room, an open book at her elbow and a furry pelt of some sort spread on the table before her.

He crowds next to her, his head shoulder-high on her these days, and reaches out a careful finger—but glances at her from the corner of his eye, and doesn’t touch it until she nods. “It’s very soft,” he says, running his finger over the pelt, which is not much larger than a sheet of paper. All but one of the feet have been removed to a little pile next to the pelt. 

“I’m working on a set of charms for a person fearful of travel,” she says in response to his unasked question. A corner of her mouth quirks up. “ _Słoneczko_ , why would I work this sort of charm on a Tuesday?”

“Tuesdays are under Mars, so . . . bravery. And in the afternoon for the sun’s strength, too,” he ends more confidently, and is rewarded by her smile.

“And how should the person use this charm?”

“Uh,” he chews on his lip for a moment, then brightens. “Bound to the left arm, Albertus Magnus says, and he’ll come and go safely.”

“Yes, indeed! So. How was your first day of middle school?”

“Mama, it’s _junior high_ , I’m almost in high school, and it was great, it was epic!” he blurts, the words almost tumbling over each other in his eagerness. “Cora and I share _three_ classes, and there's this guy named Scott, I met him, and we’re friends, and Cora and I wanna go to Scott’s and play games, he has a PS3, can I, Mama? Mrs.—Scott—Scott’s mom, she says yes, can I go?”

Her eyes have crinkled up at the corners, like she’s tucked away a laugh, but he doesn’t care if she is laughing at him, as long as she says yes, yes, _yes_ \--

“What is Scott’s last name?" she asks instead.

Stiles deflates. “McCall,” he says, and he fumbles out his phone from his pocket and says, “See, here’s the address, and Mrs. McCall’s phone number, and please, please, please can I go, please?”

“Yes—BUT!” she says more loudly, over the sound of his cheering. 

His face falls. “But?”

“But you have to be home for dinner with your Dad and me, and—Stiles. Stiles.” she says over the sound of his renewed cheering, “Stiles!” She gives him a firm look until he fidgets himself into silence, twisting his fingers into the hem of his favorite Batman shirt to help him hold still. “I set out a Latin translation project for you. You have to do it first—first, Stiles!” she adds as he makes to dash out of the room.

“Ma _maaaaa_ ,” he moans, clutching at the doorway. “I wanna gooooo to Scooott’s.” He has a really great moan, he sounds just like a zombie. “Scoooooooott’s,” he says again, making beseeching eyes at his mother.

She is unimpressed, which sucks. “You have to do the translation first. Then you can go. And you do your homework after dinner. _Before_ you get to use your computer or watch tv.”

He heaves a sigh, and turns towards his room, dragging his feet as noisily as he thinks he can get away with without seriously irritating his mother.

“Anyway, Stiles, you’ll like it,” she calls to him as he leaves. “It’s about the virtues of crows.”

“Croooooows,” he groans, and dramatically falls into his room. Lying on his back, he pushes and hitches himself—like a caterpillar moving belly-up, he decides—over towards his desk, where he can see the familiar leather-bound book placed near the edge. It’s so old that the leather has gone dark with age. He sighs hugely. But he wants to learn magic, to be like his mother that way, and this is how she said he would have to do it.

He heaves himself upright and flops onto his chair. After a minute, he shuffles around, grabs the old, old, _old_ Latin dictionary his parents gave him three years ago—it’s so old that some of the esses looks almost like an uncrossed “f”—some paper, and flips the beast-book open to the page his mother’s marked for him.

A while later, near the end of the passage, he perks up. He can tell Scott and Cora that he knows how to speak to birds, now. They won’t believe that he _can_ speak to birds, and he can’t—yet—but he knows _how_ it’s done, and he knows that they’ll believe it’s kinda epic, and it is.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a new chapter 3--if you read the story within the first five hours it was posted on 4/22, what's now chapter 4 was chapter 3. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy both!

Przemysl has just decided to take off his pants when there is a knock at the door. 

Mamusia looks up from what she’s doing on the couch and frowns at him when she catches him with his pants halfway down his bottom. “Clothes _on_ when guests come, _żabka_ ,” she says in a rush, hurrying to answer the door.

But Przemysl does _not_ want to wear his pants. They’re hot. He pushes them down to his knees before the murmur of voices at the door catch his attention. He can’t see what is going on from where he sits, though. The outside door is just around the corner.

He would rather find out what is going on. Forgetting about his pants, he takes a couple of steps towards the doorway. Then he can’t move—his legs are caught in his pants. He tries to jerk a foot out and forward, but his pants catch at it. 

He overbalances, and falls forward. The rug is soft and he’s more surprised than anything when he catches himself on his hands. But Mamusia is not there to laugh at him and kiss his fingers. He lets out a whimper, but Mamusia doesn’t come. So he sits back and screams.

The scream works. Mamusia hurries back into sight from the outside door, then pauses when he grins at her. “Mamusia, ouch!”

“Oh, _żabka_ ,” she sighs. She does not look happy. She says over her shoulder, “Please come in,” as she steps over to Przemysl and picks him up, then tugs up his pants. “Pants stay _on_ ,” she says, and puts him back down.

Przemysl scowls, but is distracted when two big people step into the room. One of them is holding a child by the hand. It’s a girl wearing a red jumper and yellow shirt. Her brown hair is caught into pig-tails and she is about his size. “Hello how are you?” he asks.

She looks up at the woman holding her hand and says, “Mommy?” The girl’s mommy looks at the other woman, tilting her head towards Przemysl.

The other woman looks over at Przemysl. Her hair is a stern gray, not brown like Mamusia’s or the girl’s mommy’s, and he is caught by her gaze. She is almost scary. She says, “They may play together,” and nods at him.

Przemysl looks anxiously to Mamusia. The gray woman is kind of scary, but there is someone to play with. Mamusia gives him a smile. It’s not as big a smile as usual, but Przemysl relaxes. “ _Żabka_ would like to play with—Cora, you said?” Mamusia says to the women.

The girl’s mommy nods. “Cora, yes.” She smiles at Przemysl and she is less scary, so he grins back at her. 

“ _Żabka_ , why don’t you show her your ark?” Mamusia says, and Przemysl gets all excited. The ark is his favorite toy! 

He trots over to grab Cora’s hand, then tugs her over to the edge of the rug where the ark is. “See!” he tells her, and sits down next to it. She crouches on her heels, which makes Przemysl jealous because he falls over when he tries that, but he has an ark, which is good. He pulls out the stripey animal and says, “See horse!”

Cora pulls out an animal, too, the gray doggy, and Przemysl shows her how they can stand on top of the ark. The older women sit on the couch and start talking to Mamusia.

Cora is making the gray doggy leap off the top of the ark with a “grr!” noise that makes Przemysl laugh when the voices of Mamusia and the other women go all funny. 

Przemysl and Cora both turn to watch them, sharing sudden uneasiness.

Mamusia is frowning. “I’m glad to know you, and I am happy for our children to play together. But my understanding is that your Emissary is a druid,” she says. Przemysl doesn’t understand much of what she says, but the way the other ladies shift in response is strange.

Cora seems reassured by them, though, and says to Przemysl, “Look! Wolf jumps. Jumps high,” she says, making the gray doggy move in a tall arch off the roof of the ark. 

“Doggy,” Przemysl corrects.

“Wolf,” Cora says.

“Doggy!”

Cora considers. “Wolf doggy?”

Przemysl frowns stubbornly. “Doggy,” he says firmly.

Cora scowls. “ _Wolf_ ,” she says, and, suddenly, she is gone and there is a small gray doggy wearing Cora’s jumper. It looks at him and gives a smug, “Grrf!”

Mamusia, Cora’s mommy, and the scary lady all exclaim, and Cora’s mommy drops down onto the carpet next to Przemysl and the baby doggy. “Cora, baby, we only go wolf at _home_ ,” she says firmly, stroking the baby doggy’s head. 

The doggy licks her palm as the scary gray lady says, “She won’t hurt him.”

Mamusia says, “I’m not concerned about that, Alpha Hale. _Żabka_ ’s protected.”

The scary gray lady says, “Talia.”

“Yes, mother,” Cora’s mommy says as the doggy bats a paw at her. She says to the doggy, “Cora, you can change back now, or we can leave now.” Her eyes are an orangey yellow, which puzzles Przemysl. He doesn’t think her eyes were yellow before.

Suddenly Cora is back again. One arm is stuck out of her jumper. “See. Wolf!” she says triumphantly as her mother tucks her arm back into the sleeve. 

“Doggy,” Przemysl snaps. Then he takes back the gray doggy piece from the ark. “Mine,” he adds.

“Oh, dear,” Mamusia says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a new chapter 3--if you read the story within the first five hours it was posted on 4/22, what's now chapter 4 was chapter 3. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy both!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this story within the past five hours, this was chapter 3. There's now a new chapter 3, and this is chapter 4. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy both!

Stiles is sitting at his desk, practicing geomancy. Now that his sophomore year of high school’s over, his mother has had him studying divination half the days. He had wanted to start practicing with pyromancy, but his mother _and_ his father had said no—well, actually, his mother had said, _Not until you can buy your own fire bowl_ (and the Jeep, his beautiful Jeep that he was now allowed to drive, used so much gas so quickly), and his father had said, _Not when I’d have to be the one to arrest you_ and, _No son of mine is starting fires in California,_ and, _No!_. 

Stiles had reluctantly conceded that starting a bunch of fires was maybe not the most prudent decision. It still disappoints him, though. How great would it be, to predict the future by setting things on fire! He will have to figure out some ways of earning money this summer so he can get the fire bowl. 

Until then, he’d started with hydromancy and practiced on his parents. Now he’s on to geomancy. He’s studied the theory for a while, and now that he’s embarking on the practical, he’s decided to start with an easy question, and one of his best friends as the subject: What kind of summer will Scott have? He rereads the passage in Nicolaus Wodka de Kwidzyn’s treatise, and starts making his rows of dots on a clean sheet of paper that he’s labeled Scotty at the top, concentrating on his question as he does so. His magic surges warmly in response.

Dots made, he starts counting them off and notes down the results with the Mothers first, of course . . . then the Daughters . . . Nieces . . . Witnesses . . . Judge. 

He studies the resulting tableau, and flips through the treatise to consider what it says about the different figures. Moon, journey, change, moon, strife—he can see markers of those all throughout the divination. That seems really odd for Scott; moons would be typical for werewolves, which Scott wasn’t. And all the trouble…. Huh. Maybe he’d done the divination wrong. Maybe Scott should be present for it? 

He frowns, considering. Scott still thinks Stiles is joking when he discusses references to magic, so that might not work. Cora, though—Cora’s a werewolf; she’d understand what Stiles is trying to do. He’s a little tired from the divination, but not enough to have to wait for another day before doing it again. He shoots her a text and, after getting her reply, shuffles the book and his papers together, and stuffs them into his backpack. 

The Jeep’s gas needle hovers just above empty. That’s enough to get him to the Hales’ and back.

The last stretch of the road leading to their house is the bumpiest; it’s mostly dirt, with a few odd remnants of gravel. Cora says her parents have been planning to put down new gravel, but have been waiting for the college semester to end to make Laura and Derek do it, since they don’t have summer jobs lined up yet. The Jeep energetically bangs over the pot-holes and bumps, and even though the driveway is otherwise empty, he parks it just behind the old Mustang Laura and Derek had pooled their money to get when they went to college.

Cora’s in the tv room when Matthew, Elizabeth’s and Carrie’s son, lets him in, along with Derek, Laura, Petra, and Noah; Peter’s and Nichelle’s daughters are nowhere in evidence. They’re watching _The Legend of Korra_ , Matthew going to rejoin Noah, Petra, and Cora on the floor where they’re passing a bag of chips. Derek’s lounging in a club chair with what looks to be an entire bowl of caramel corn balanced in his lap. Stiles tears his attention from Derek to the tv and recognizes the episode; it’s the one where the Fire Ferrets are fighting—

“YES! Wolfbats rule!” Cora cheers, raising a fist.

“The Wolfbats are cheating,” Stiles observes, dropping down beside her. 

“Hey!” Matthew and Noah object simultaneously. Derek also grunts protests, noise muffled by a mouthful of caramel corn.

“Yeah, no spoilers, Stiles,” Cora says, bumping his shoulder with hers, firmly enough to tip him sideways.

He protests indignantly, “It’s what they’re already doing; it’s not a spoiler!”

“If you’re going to talk, don’t do it here,” Laura snaps from where she’s sprawled over most of a couch, the Beacon Hills Tribune on her chest, folded closed. 

Stiles grimaces and nods at Cora, who heaves a huge sigh and gets to her feet, pulling him up after her with an easy tug. “The things I do for you,” she mutters as he grabs his backpack and follows her to her room. 

When he starts to talk as they climb the stairs, Cora shushes him abruptly. “Shut it,” she hisses. “Nanna’s sleeping,” and she nods to the door of the alpha’s suit. 

Stiles nods, and proceeds down the hallway as quietly as he can, grateful to get to Cora’s room without a stumble or trip. Alpha Hale grudgingly tolerates him hanging out with Cora, but he thinks Nania Hale’s grudging tolerance might not last beyond his waking her up.

“So what is it?” she asks as soon as they have the door shut behind them. Her room’s messy as usual—bed unmade and piled high with maybe-clean clothes at its foot—and Stiles always likes hanging out there because it makes him feel neater by comparison.

With a grimace, Stiles just charges into explaining the situation; Cora wouldn’t appreciate him beating about the bush. “So I was practicing a divination technique, and I think it came out wrong. I’d like to try again when I could be in the same room with the subject—you.”

Cora’s eyes narrow. “You want to practice magic _on_ me? No thanks. I _heard_ about what you did to Derek—”

“No, no,” Stiles says hastily. “Divination is a passive experience for the subject. I do everything, no worries. Besides,” he adds, “that was years ago. I was _thirteen_. Practically a baby!” He ruthlessly sacrifices the reputation of his younger self. It’s all about the now! That’s how he rolls, yes indeed. He is a man of the moment.

“Hmph,” Cora says, unimpressed. 

“Please,” he wheedles, wishing he had Scott’s ability to look all beseeching. Whenever Stiles tries, though, people start looking at him suspiciously. When Cora continues to look at him, he says, “Pretty please? With cream . . . and . . . sugar . . . ” he trails off as she gazes flatly at him.

Sighing, he caves. “What do you want?” It’s a sadly familiar pattern, as is Cora’s response.

“Very good, little padawan,” she says with a bright smile, and Stiles wonders for the thousandth time why he likes her style of bitchy condescension so much. But he does, unfortunately. It’s even more unfortunate when she says, “I want your phantom blade.”

“WHAT?” Stiles squawks, loudly enough to earn bared teeth and a growl from Cora before he remembers Alpha Hale’s nap, and lowers his volume. “WHAT. _It’s just a divination_ , I’m not going to _do anything_ to you.”

Cora shrugs. “Mom always says knowing the future does no good,” she says piously.

“She _does not_ ,” Stiles hisses.

Cora shrugs again. 

Stiles seethes, glaring at her. 

She doesn’t budge. 

“Okay!” he bursts, throwing his hands up. “Fine. The phantom blade’s yours. I’ll transfer it to you next time I log on.”

“Thank you,” Cora says demurely, and Stiles makes a face at her. 

“You’re the worst,” he grumps, rummaging around in his backpack to pull out paper and a pen. “Here,” he thrusts them at her, “ask yourself, what kind of summer will you have, and draw me a grid of dots.”

“How many?”

“Doesn’t matter, but don’t bother with making the lines even,” he says, watching as she puts the paper down on the rug and begins marking it, carefully so as not to punch through the paper.

“That’s enough,” he says after a while, and he takes the paper back from her to begin drawing the figures. His magic pulls a little more energy from him, and his uneasiness grows as he finishes the results. Some of the figures are the same as from his divination for Scott. He double-checks de Kwidzyn’s treatise to confirm, but it’s pretty clear: sadness, moon, pain, loss.

He stares at the results.

Cora does, too. “What do they mean?”

Stiles chews on his lower lip. “I . . . I think I need more data,” he hedges. He glances up from the paper, and asks slowly, “Do you think that . . . Laura . . . might let me do one for her?” 

Cora studies him, using both hands to pull her hair back over her shoulders, then knots it. She nods. 

Downstairs, the _Legend of Korra_ is still going strong. Stiles hovers at the entrance to the living room, while Cora goes over to touch Laura on the shoulder, murmuring something to her quietly. Derek turns to watch, but Matthew, Petra, and Noah—currently piled atop each other and squabbling over the potato chips—pay no attention. Cora jerks her head at Stiles, and Laura sits upright, looking over the back of the couch at him. He tries to smile.

Laura’s brows draw together, and she tosses her copy of the newspaper to the ground and gets up, trailed by Cora. Stiles awkwardly backs away, fetching up against the dining room table. He drops into a seat just as Laura gets to him.

She pulls out a chair and turns it around, crossing her arms over its high back. “What’s going on, Stiles?” Derek walks up after her, but hangs back by the pass-through from the dining to the living room. Stiles tries not to notice how snugly the sleeves of Derek’s blue t-shirt fit around his biceps, as he leans against the wall. Walls. They look good on Derek, too.

Stiles scrubs a hand over his face, dragging his attention back to Laura. “I’m practicing divination, and I’m getting some, uh, weird results. So,” he says tentatively, “can I try it on you? I need more data.” There’s a rustle behind him; presumably Cora, sitting down at the table, too.

“Hm,” Laura says, tilting her head in consideration. “What does this involve?” She’s always been more cautious—or more reasoned in her actions, Stiles hasn’t been able to decide—than Cora.

“It’s geomancy,” Stiles explains, veering between irritation and nervousness; he could never quite predict how Laura would respond to his magic. “All the working of it comes from me. You’ll just make some dots or lines on a paper—it used to be in dirt, you know, that’s why it was named geomancy, and the ancient Greeks performed it by casting stones on the ground. I kind of like the idea of doing it that way, except, you know, more of a mess and less portable—”

Laura holds up a hand, and he bites his lip to choke back the flow of words. “Okay, I get it. And the weird results?”

“I don’t want to say because it might, like, predispose your thinking?” Stiles says.

“Nanna and Mom won’t like it,” Derek says.

“Mom’s not here,” Laura returns smartly, twisting to raise an eyebrow at Derek. “Nanna’s sleeping. Besides, they’ve let us make up our own minds about Stile’s magic, anyway. It’s just his mother they don’t want to have anything to do with—sorry, Stiles,” she tosses to him, and Cora laughs.

“It’s okay,” Stiles says with a shrug; the older Hales’ argument with his mother is old news by now.

“You shouldn’t let Stiles practice on you,” Derek says darkly.

“Oh, Derek,” Laura says sadly, shaking her head in mock reproof. “You never learn.” Then she grins at him, and Stiles is close enough to see the flash of her fangs and her golden eyes. “Stiles is going to practice on you, too.”

Stiles sits up straighter at this pronouncement.

Derek scowls. “No, he’s not.”

Laura’s tone sharpens, gets firmer. “Yes, he is. Sit _down_.” Derek gives way to her, as Stiles has always seen him—and his siblings and cousins—do when confronted by Laura’s determination to have things her way. She watches her brother with narrowed eyes as his scowl deepens, even as he sits down at the table and crosses his arms over his chest. She turns to Stiles and grins genially. “You don’t mind having another test subject, do you?”

“No, not at all,” Stiles rushes, then pauses, thinking aloud. “Though, if—er, since—Derek’s going to do it, it would be helpful for me to use a different method with him. I’d just need a bowl and three pebbles. Uh, Derek should get the pebbles himself.” 

Derek huffs and stalks out of the room. Cora snorts in amusement, then says, “I’ll go get a bowl. Anything else?”

“Fill it with water,” Stiles says, taking out a piece of paper and his pen. By the time he’s explained things to Laura and she has begun making energetic dashes across her sheet of paper, Derek and Cora are back, and Cora sets the bowl before Derek’s seat. 

As soon as the water has settled into stillness, Stiles comes to stand behind Derek’s shoulder. “So, just drop all three of the pebbles into the water at once,” he says, putting a hand on Derek’s shoulder. It’s warm and broad, but Derek stiffens beneath him. “Go ahead,” Stiles prompts him, trying not to sigh. He concentrates on his spark instead, its warmth rising as he focuses on Derek and the water-bowl, and then turns that concentration to the bowl—hydromancy comes less easily to him than geomancy.

Derek drops the pebbles, and they hit the water fractionally separate from one another. Narrow ripples rush out, then broader ripples that spread and overlap with each other. Stiles takes a breath, closing his eyes and holding tighter to Derek as he keeps his attention focused on the ripples, the patterns made as they—crashed against each other, lost shape, some forming links while others broke and dissolved. 

Stiles opened his eyes, drawing in a shuddering breath as he releases Derek’s shoulder. “I—I need—” Cora grabs his elbow and sharply nudges Derek out of his seat, pushing Stiles down into it. He steadies his breathing, 

“What did you see?” Derek asks sharply.

Stiles shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, turning to Laura.

She slides the paper across the table to him. “I think I’m done,” she says quietly, her eyes watchful as she glances between him and Derek. 

“Yeah,” he says, then makes an open-palmed grabby-hand gesture at her. She passes him the pen, and he starts to draw the figures, tiredness leeching at him; four divinations in a row is perhaps a bit much when first starting out, Stiles thinks distractedly, then focuses again on the figures, blocking them into a neat grid.

Mothers . . .

Daughters . . .

Nieces . . .

Witnesses . . . 

Judge.

Stiles doesn’t need to look up the figures again; he’s seen most of them before, in Cora’s, Derek’s, and Scott’s readings, though they’re fiercer in Laura’s, more pressing somehow. Loss. Strife. Evil.

“I—I—” words, unexpectedly, fail him as he looks up to find himself the focus of all three siblings. He tries to figure out what to say, how to explain—

And a whisper tickles his senses, and he jerks up his head, and a rush of power surges through the room—

And Laura’s eyes flash gold, then bleed orange. 

And all three Hales break into howls, quavering and then growing stronger, throatier, keening a loss that’s echoed more shrilly from the living room behind them all.

Stiles feels the sounds rippling around him, brushed with swirling power, currents changing and re-aligning.

“Nanna, that’s Nanna—” Laura gasps, and Derek breaks for the stairs, thundering up them.

“Alpha Hale—” Stiles says.

“Has died,” Laura says, voice steady over the chorus of howls from the living room. Cora’s knuckles are white where she grips her sister’s arm. Laura turns to her, “Go check on the younger ones.” Cora nods, and leaves.

Derek returns to the room, his face white. “She—she looks like she’s still asleep—”

“Mother’s the Alpha now.” Laura takes a steadying breath, then says, “You should leave, Stiles. She’ll be home soon, and Deaton probably with her. You shouldn’t be here then.”

“Yes,” Stiles nods, jerkily, then gathers up the loose paper—loss, he sees again in its figures, the same message as in Cora’s, loss, _oh_.

He has the presence of mind to take the bowl with him to the kitchen, emptying it and pocketing the pebbles, before he leaves.

He thinks about the other aspects of the divinations as he drives home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read this story within the past five hours, this was chapter 3. There's now a new chapter 3, and this is chapter 4. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy both!


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